The Baker's Guide to Risky Rituals
Page 15
“Dunno, but there’s some kind of activity happening on the street,” Pie announced, passing the front windows.
Bell slid the keg into place under the bar, and glanced up at Pie who had stopped at the front door, eyes fixed onto the street over the top of his glasses. “An event?” Bell asked. Some kind of chintzy fall thing, no doubt. Probably with pumpkin carving. Festivities were disgusting.
“No…” Pie said, brow furrowing. Then he leaned on the door, opening it to a cool evening breeze. The sound of sirens called through the air, followed by the murmurs of locals on the street.
Danny and the others came out of the kitchen, Ash dropping off another keg behind the counter, all of them staring out the door.
“Another murder?” Dante asked.
“What?” Danny jumped at the question and ran for the door, squeezing out past Pie. He stopped on the sidewalk, gawking down the street, and Bell felt a pit forming in his stomach. “Everyone’s down in front of the Bakery.”
Bell’s shoulder collided with Ash’s as he rushed out from behind the bar to the front door, the others following close behind. Pie was trailing after Danny down the sidewalk, but Bell was on a beeline straight across the block, until he realized that the spectacle wasn’t at Josie’s but on the opposite side of the street. He slowed down, searching the heads in the crowd until two people shuffled closer together, and he caught sight of her. Josie stood in the heart of the onlookers, eyes wide and fixed on the storefront of Love & Lattes, her hand cupped over her open mouth.
The crowd on the street continued to shift around Josie, until Bell realized they were falling back from her, their stares turning away from the cafe—closed for the night—to the kitchen witch amongst them. Finally, Bell spared a glance for the building. The cafe sported a bright neon sign in their main window, and Bell squinted as a dark silhouette squirmed around the heart of the ‘O’ on ‘Love’. He walked closer, jaw tightening as the view inside became clearer.
Snakes, dozens upon dozens, curling around the backs of chairs and slithering over countertops. A red fox scrabbling inside the window, raccoons in the pastry case at the counter. The inhabitants of the preserve, somehow trapped inside of the locked cafe, screeching and chittering and hissing at the audience on the street. An audience which was slowly turning to Josie, to stare at her out of the corner of their eyes. As if they thought she was capable of something like this.
Bell knew exactly where the blame lay. “Vinny,” he snarled under his breath as a raccoon on a shelf knocked down a mason jar full of loose leaf tea, glass shattering on the floor.
“No!” moaned a middle aged woman, closest to the front of the cafe. She had keys fisted in her hands.
“Animal control is on their way, hun,” a man said, wrapping an arm around her shoulder.
“They’re destroying the shop,” the woman whimpered, turning into his chest.
Pie arrived at Bell’s left, Ashtaroth on his right. “They’re looking at the witches,” Ash murmured.
The stitch witch and her eerie sister had arrived, flanking Josie’s sides much the way Bell’s demons did him.
“The witches are looking at us,” Pie said as Imogen’s head whipped in their direction, her eyes sharp and narrowed. “It’s Vinny’s mark, they’ll be able to tell.”
Bell was less concerned with the witches knowing Vinny was responsible, than he was with the way the town was looking at Josie. Or the fact that Imogen was leaning in, whispering in her ear, clutching at Josie’s arm. When Josie looked at him, her stare pierced right through Bell’s gut, anger tightening her gaze against his. She blamed him, whether it was Vinny’s handiwork or not.
And she should, he thought. He should’ve reined Vinny in from the start.
No. He should have celebrated Vinny’s work. He should’ve enjoyed the way the town was turning on Josie Benoit. He should’ve been grinning at her, enjoying the strike of betrayal she was feeling. Maybe Vinny had done him a favor with this act of rebellion, turning her against him. If she was angry, it might be easier to resist the urge to seek her out, tease her and flirt with her.
But rebellion was rebellion, and he was going to take a special kind of pleasure in answering Vinny’s.
“Close the Inferno,” Bell said, words rumbling out in a whisper from his throat. “I’ll be at the house.”
He hunted for his leash on the wayward demon of his crew, found it trailing through town, and wrapped it up in a tight mental fist. He walked to his bike, mounting it and riding away from the scene on the street. Vinny thrashed against the chokehold Bell had on his willpower, dragging Vinny all the way to Grimsby House, practically feeling Vinny’s heels scuffing on the ground as he rode.
Bell pulled into the driveway and walked around to the back of the house. The woods butted up against the delicately manicured rose bushes and herb beds of the house gardens, and Bell could hear twigs cracking and the soft muttered curses in demonic tongue as he reeled Vinny in with ruthless speed.
“What the fuck do you want?” Vinny snarled as he came skidding through the briars of a rose bush, collapsing to his knees in front of Bell.
Bell stared down at the other King with a brief and shallow satisfaction. Vinny looked haggard. The demand of Bell’s pull through the granted link had cost Vinny some color and breath, even in his disguise.
“In a minute. First, tell me what you want, Vinny. Because by Beelzebub’s sac, I can’t seem to measure it out,” Bell purred. Vinny’s jaw locked shut, and Bell nodded, sliding his hands into his pockets and rolling back on his heels. “I have guesses, you know? You want to piss me off. You want to prove yourself as a superior demon. You want my position.”
Vinny glared up at him, eyes flashing acidic green for a moment. “None of those sound terrible,” he said.
Bell grinned, and a soft laugh curled out. “Have you ever met Morningstar, Vinny?” Vinny was quiet and Bell smiled. “I thought not. I assume you would like to? It’s a great honor. You’ve served the cause for millennia. Even with your granted Kingship, I’m sure you’ve had to crawl around in the Bowels to get any due granted to you, just like the rest of us. A title doesn’t offer much in the way of pride down there, does it?”
“Get to your fucking point,” Vinny hissed.
“My point is that if you met Morningstar,” Bell said, taking slow steps forward, “Your master would crush you for sticking a pinky toe out of line. Morningstar would burn you to cinders for daring to think an independent thought outside of the orders you were granted.” Bell stopped directly in front of Vinny, mentally wrapping that leash around the other demon’s arms and chest. He reached out, wrapping his hand around Vinny’s throat, finding it convincingly fragile just like a human’s would be. “I may be a more lenient leader than Morningstar, but that should not leave you feeling comfortable, Vine.”
Bell tightened his grip about Vinny’s throat, watching his fingers mark a pale trace of his grip, and Vinny’s face turn red.
“Who told you to play games in town?” Bell snarled, enjoying the feel of Vinny’s attempt to swallow, muscle flexing under the pressure of his thumb.
“We’ve wasted days here,” Vinny squeezed out.
“Whose orders were you following?” Bell shouted, spittle flying into Vinny’s electric green eye.
“No one’s,” Vinny mouthed, voice strangled.
“Then why did you do it?” Bell whispered, knowing there would be no answer. He stared fixedly at Vinny’s face, watching eyes flutter shut, mouth gaping. Vinny squirmed, but Bell’s grip was complete. “From now on, you breathe when I tell you to, step where I point your foot, and keep your cursed ideas in your head until I permit you to act.”
Vinny’s pulse thrummed under Bell’s fingers, like a bird beating its wings inside a new cage, until finally it died. Bell dropped the demon to the ground, body landing with a dull smack against the grass. The stares of the rest of the crew were on his back as he stood straight. And against his cheek… Bell turned his hea
d and saw the green witch looking out the window of the second story of her little carriage house. She would report the scene to her coven, but Vinny would be up again as soon as Bell decided he could tolerate the sulking, so there was no real risk in her witness. He stomped any flicker of wonder about what Josie would think out of his head and turned to face the others.
“He’ll be up in a few hours,” he said, eyeing them. Pie and Ash would have no issue with his discipline, he knew that much. And Dante was smirking. Barbie and Aim were harder to read and newer to his service, but they didn’t look angry or disturbed. “Take him inside,” he said to Barbie, waiting to see what flickered across the demon’s face.
Nothing. Not so much as a blink. Barbie and Aim strode forward, lifting Vinny’s body between them and hauling it to the patio doors. Ash and Dante followed them in, and Bell caught a laugh from Dante’s throat. Pie waited for Bell to join him.
“His actions served our purpose,” Pie said, more an observance than a condemnation.
“Yes. But they weren’t under my orders,” Bell said. “If someone wants to be clever, they can clear it with me first.”
Pie blinked. “Alright. It will be a reprieve from his huffing, at least.”
Bell rolled his shoulders, finding a surprising tension lingering there, and followed Pie inside.
Josie bit her lip, staring out the shop window of the bakery as John and Linda Love dragged out a third bag of trash from the wreckage of Love & Lattes’ evening infestation. She’d watched from her living room window last night as Animal Control worked on retrieving the woodland menagerie out of the shop until well after midnight. What was left behind was a huge mess, and a guarantee that Love & Lattes wouldn’t be cleared to open again until a thorough scrub down had been completed, not to mention all the ruined furnishings and stock.
Josie sucked in a deep breath and smoothed down her apron, crossing to the front door of her bakery and shoving open the door, bells clanging overhead.
Linda was standing at the corner of Love & Lattes as John threw the bag into the back of a dumpster the town had let them park on the street for the day. The exhausted woman’s eyes glazed over Josie as she approached, before doubling back and widening.
“Hey,” Josie said, jogging across the empty street. “I’d like to help, anyway I can.”
Linda Love’s lips pursed, and she flicked a hand at Josie in dismissal. “That ain’t necessary.”
“But it’s neighborly,” Josie said, shrugging. She offered a rare smile, tried to be Rosa with all her warmth and impervious charm. “I’ve got the espresso and coffee makers that I can lend you as long as you need. If they got into your stock, I’d be happy to share. I always over order the basics anyway.”
Linda ran her tongue over her teeth behind her lips, and looked Josie up and down out of the corner of her eye. She was turned to where John leaned against the dumpster catching his breath, refusing to face Josie directly.
“If y’all need a nightshift to clean tonight—” Josie started again.
“I don’t think you need to do this,” Linda said, flat and terse. “You showed up here. Put yourself in competition with a local cafe as soon as you arrived. You made yourself clear.”
Local. Like Josie was some kind of major chain out of the city. “I never considered us in competition,” she said, trying to find peace.
Linda clucked and swiveled to face her, dark lined eyebrows raised high on her forehead. “Didn’t you? Well bless your heart, but we sure as hell felt it, honey. A hoity toity little bakery that just happens to offer espresso? Right across the street from us.”
“It was the only space available,” Josie said, voice growing high and anxious.
“In this town,” Linda growled back. “We have managed since you got here. We will manage now that you’ve… that this strange phenomenon has happened, and our doors will be open just as soon as they can be. So really, sweetheart,” she said, the word loaded with any flavor but sweet, “Don’t you worry a second about us.”
There were folk out on the sidewalk, and since the murders had caught some attention on the news, their audience was mainly local. It was time to retreat.
“If you change your mind, let me know,” Josie murmured, turning away.
Her heart was pounding in her ears, hot shame licking like flames up her face. Worse, she found Bell waiting outside the bakery as she stumbled across the road, his eyes narrowed on the Loves.
“What do you want?” she asked, words all choked up in her throat. She didn’t wait for his answer, tearing open the door and rushing back behind her counter as if it was a barricade between her and the suspicious town. Behind her, Bell’s feet landed softly on her tile, chimes gentling as the door closed behind them.
She spun to face him, hands bracing on her counter. “Was it you?” she asked, even though Imogen had told her it was the work of Vinny.
He shook his head.
It wasn’t a relief. “Was it your orders?”
“No,” he said, hands shoving into his pockets. He held her stare, and it was somehow worse, this lack of shame on his part.
You wanted the demon to feel shame? Stupid Josie, she thought.
“It doesn’t matter. This is what you’re here to do. Turn this town in on itself. I am a good mark,” she said, nodding as if she approved of the plan, jutting her chin forward. “Easy starter plate for them to swallow.”
Bell didn’t say a word, and Josie thought she might like to throw a plate at his head. This was her fault. For trusting him. Or maybe not that much, but for liking him.
“What do you want?” she asked.
He opened his mouth, grimaced, and shut it again before his eyes flicked over to her pastry case. “Quiche?” he said, sounding not quite sure.
“No,” she snapped. Bell straightened, grew larger in front of her door, glowered at her. Fuck that, she was not going to be scared of him, no matter what he was or what he got this town to believe about her. “Get out of my shop, Bell. Don’t come back here.”
She would make sure he couldn’t step within three feet of the door if she had to. Imogen would know how, if she couldn’t find the answer herself.
Bell glared across the store front at her, as if he were trying to communicate something to her without saying it out loud. Except he was a demon, and if he wanted to do that she was pretty sure he could. Josie held her breath, glared right back, and a moment later Bell turned heel and left. Her phone blared in her pocket, making her jump, and Josie dug it out to see Rosa’s name.
“What did he want?” Rosa asked in a rush over the phone. Figures Josie’s friends were spying on her. Not that she minded so much. Rosa would back her up if Josie needed her.
“Quiche,” Josie spat.
“Did he apologize?”
Had she been very transparent this whole time about her attraction to the demon? “Why would he do that?”
“I saw him last night. Imogen said it was Vinny that put that little display on at L&L’s? Well, Bell choked Vinny to death…to temporary death, at least. Looked like a punishment, not a reward for good work.”
A little bubble of hope swelled in her chest, and Josie stamped it out with every last ounce of emotional strength she possessed. Unfortunately, after the past two weeks she was lacking in her reserves, and what remained was small but persistent.
“He’s a demon. We know why they’re here. He’s not on my side. None of them are on anyone’s side but their own. And maybe not even that,” she said, shrugging.
Rosa hummed. “Okay. I just… I mean, I get it, babe. I really do. And you’re right, and I shouldn’t say this…” Rosa rushed on, “But I’m gonna anyways, and I think that he looks at you in a not-his-enemy kind of way, and that maybe he came to check on you or something. I dunno. It could all be an act.”
“It could be an act,” Josie agreed. “The bad boy look is all well and good, but I’m not interested in the psyche of a demon, okay?” She was, a bit. This demon, anyway.
“No rude men,” Josie agreed. “I could use, like, a girls’ night. In,” she added. She didn’t need to go back to Gunney’s again to be stared at.
“Wine,” Rosa offered.
“Rum,” Josie said, thinking of her Loa spirits. “And magic.”
“I’ll text the others.”
The day dragged on and Josie frowned at her case of pastries, snacking aimlessly off her own product. If no one was going to buy it, then a lot of her fucking work was going to waste, and that made her angry and hungry. If she was sick off sugar by closing time, Sweet Pea could take the blame.
The bells on her door finally sang as she was beating some puff pastry into submission for the weekend’s croissants, and Josie stepped back to see who had arrived.
Wandering closer to her counter was Richard Merryweather, wearing the same frumpy waist coat he’d had on at the county forum last week.
“Be right with you,” she called.
Merryweather froze in place, eyes darting to find her. His expression reminded her of a rabbit still on the road in the glow of headlights, but a smile wobbled out after a long pause. Josie rewrapped her pastry and tucked it back into the fridge, wiping her hands on her apron.
“How can I help you?” she asked, walking up to the counter. He was her only customer of the day. She hadn’t had a day this slow since she’d decided to be open during a level two snow storm in case any stranded tourists wanted drinking chocolate and warm pastry. Actually, today was worse than that day, because a couple of stranded tourists had wandered in during the snow storm.
“I… um…” he swallowed and bent forward studying her case. She caught the tell tale growth of his gaze and then blink of shock as he noted her prices.
“Half-off everything,” she said. “Slow day.”
He nodded and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye. “Heard some funny things about you when I got into Sweet Pea today.”